The present invention relates to a motor vehicle wheel, and in particular a disc wheel adapted to be fitted to cars.
Generally, motor vehicle wheels are constituted by a rim supporting the tire and a disc connecting the rim to the central hub.
The central hub is configured to permit the wheel to be coupled to the hub-supporting drum of the car and is provided with a central hole for centering thereof and with peripheral holes for receiving the bolts which secure the wheel to the drum.
Frequently, motorists will also seek to use special body wheels of metallic alloys, which are shaped in accordance with particular aesthetical preferences.
In order to meet with the various dimensional and aesthetic demands in the motor vehicle market, the manufacturers of these special body wheels must design a considerable assortment of wheels and must therefore stock a correspondent number of expensive casting dies.
An even greater inconvenience in the marketplace occurs due to the fact that there are almost always differences in the wheel mounts among cars using wheels of identical sizes (namely having the same diameter and the same rim width), either with regard to the number of holes by which the wheel is fixed to the hub supporting drum or, in the case of the same numbers of fixing holes, with regard to the diameters of and the distances between such centering and/or fixing holes.
Therefore, the manufacturer of special body wheels must manufacture, for each model of wheel, as many variants as there are wheel mounts of the cars in commerce.
Consequently, even if some of these special body wheels were manufactured in minimal amounts, a considerable number of these wheels nonetheless remained in the manufacturers' and retailers' warehouses.
The inconveniences arising due to the variety in the wheel mounts also affects the customer who purchases a car already provided with special body wheels.
In fact, frequently, the user must get rid of his old special body wheels because his new car has wheel mounts which are different from those of the previous car.
Wheels provided with a number and distribution of fixing holes that allow the wheels to be mounted to more than one type of wheel mount are already known.
However, this wheel is somewhat complicated both with regard to its manufacture and with regard to the use thereof.
Moreover, such a known wheel cannot be adapted to different diameters of the centering mechanism of the various wheel mounts.
As should be obvious from above, the production of wheels which are so diverse from each other involves a waste of raw materials and energy needed for their machining, and results in the need for excessive warehouse space on the part of both the manufacturer and the retailer.